This week’s Bath Chronicle has child poverty in Bath as its main story. One in five children in Bath now live in poverty.

I have written the following letter to the paper in response:

The increasing numbers of children living in poverty in Bath (Chronicle, 30th October) reflects the impoverishment of working people as a result of the neoliberal economic policies pursued by Tories, Labour and Lib Dems.

Deregulation of capital and the opening-up of world markets was designed to disadvantage workers to the advantage of the very rich, who are now even richer and control much political debate through their lobbying of governments, ownership of the media, and financial contributions to political parties.

This extreme concentration of wealth benefits neither the wealthy or the poor, and it needs to be tackled through the tax system. Labour seems unwilling to contemplate this. The proposed Lib Dem mansion tax is a small step the right direction, but the wealthiest do not keep their wealth in residential property.

We are the 7th richest country in the world yet among the 32 members of the OECD only 6 countries are more unequal than the UK. Only the Green Party is willing to tackle the real problem by raising a tax on the wealthiest; that is those whose wealth exceeds 3 million pounds.

A vote for me at the General Election is a vote to tackle the increasing division, and pauperisation, of British society, to the benefit of all.